


Confessions

by ElizabethWilde



Category: 10th Kingdom
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-30
Updated: 2005-08-30
Packaged: 2017-12-06 06:53:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElizabethWilde/pseuds/ElizabethWilde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The huntsman muses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confessions

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2005 10thKingdom mailing list ficfest. This is entirely different from what I originally intended to write for it. It just sort of happened.

Some say that coldness led me to walk out of my village and follow in the wake of the queen’s carriage. Some say no regret could ever pass the mind of so cruel a man. But I am not cruel. I am not unfeeling. The talk of people who know nothing but my reputation is merely borne of their own fear. If they served the queen, they would have no fear.

I have not forgotten and am not immune entirely to regret. I wake at night, and I reach for my wife. I think of the way her hair smelled and her smile. Those thoughts pass. They are an echo of something long since gone. The memories that linger are certainly warmer than the times they reflect. 

The dreams of my son are more persistent. The sight of my wife weeping over his body as I left moved me, but it did not change the fact that I have a greater destiny than being her husband or his father. I left them to claim a reward beyond the prize of the bow.

I do not regret my decision. Though my life is no longer my own, my life’s passion is now my life itself. The queen allows me to delve deeper into my true nature. I become the forest and the creatures within it, human and not. I see the things that they see and know their ways. I learn so that I may better serve my queen.

I am no longer father nor husband nor lover nor son. Such things are no longer possible for me. My will is not my own. I gave it willingly to the queen along with what was left of my soul. I gave her my life so that I might help her gain her rightful place.

For better or worse, I am her huntsman.


End file.
